Teams365 Blog - POTENTIALS REALIZED

#Teams365 #386: Three ThinGs which Make Mentoring Work

1/21/2015

There are several skills which underlie a great mentoring process and series of conversations. Research continues to show that strong relationships are key to mentoring success. Behind this is the ability to listen, build trust and ask great questions. Let's look at each one of these in turn.

Listening is key to successful mentoring, as it is to any leadership relationship today. In our business world of multitasking it is increasingly uncommon for many people to really stop and listen when others are talking. A mentor's ability to listen for what the protege really needs and then select their approaches, stories and examples form there is critical to a great mentoring conversation. In addition to listening for the words, mentors can be listening for the tone, pace, and also what's not being said by the protege.

The ability to build trust is also critical for success. Past blog posts have explored our activities which built trust such as follow-through, walking your talk and being present. You can view our Teams365 trust building cartoon from last year which illustrates many of these activities here.

Finally, great mentors ask great questions. As we have seen in the past, powerful questions are focused on expanding awareness, insights and clarity. Click here to access 20 powerful leadership questions. Short, to the point, and often starting with What, powerful questions shape the flow and direction of the conversation.

What do you see as critical skills for the mentoring partnership? What's helped to make your mentoring process a success?

Have a great rest of the week. Tomorrow I'm back with our Thursday Team Building Tip.

Best
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized - Leadership | Teamwork | Coaching Skills Training for Leaders
Supporting Team Leaders One Conversation at a Time(TM)
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)

#Teams365 #385: Mentoring: Questions to Ask Along the Way

1/20/2015

The formal mentoring process goes through a number of stages - the beginning of the relationship where you are getting to know each other and set a focus, through to the mid-point where there might be great resonance around the focus areas of your conversations and the wrap up, when the formal mentoring process comes to an end.

Today's post explores questions you as a mentoring partnership may be wanting to ask along the way:

At the start:
What is the ptoteges focus for the mentoring? What does he/she hope to get out of the experience?
What are each one of your expectations of the process? Of each other?
What is the protege looking for - advice, stories, feedback?

Mid-point:
What's working well? What needs a change/to be tweaked?
What's been achieved?
What's been the key learning for the mentor? Protege?
What further areas do you want to explore?

End of process:
What has been key learning and achievements (for both mentor and protege)
What are the next steps on the part of the progege to keep this alive?
What recommendations and best practices do you have and want to share with future cohorts?

What other questions do you think would be useful to include at the various mentoring evaluation points?

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized: Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching(Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC and the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team

#Teams365 #384: Five Things To consider When Establishing a Mentoring Program

1/19/2015

Five things to consider when establishing a mentoring program:

Mentoring programs are a low cost development option to support succession planning, career development and leadership development. Today’s post explores five considerations when thinking about introducing a mentoring program into your organization.

1. Purpose - What's the purpose of the mentoring program? Is it to grow leaders, to expand people’s understanding of an organization, an industry? Is the program geared to support proteges in developing specific skills?

2. Provide training to mentors and mentees/proteges - A training program before kickoff can pay off in dividends. Whether it’s a joint session for both mentors and mentees at the kickoff, with separate breakouts to address the needs of mentors and mentees, or separate sessions held for both, training sets a solid foundation. Topic areas which can be important to focus in on are the roles and responsibilities of mentors and proteges, background on the program and why it exists, and expectations (how regularly people are expected to meet and for how long)

3. Provide guidelines on program expectations such as how frequently should people be meeting, for how long, potential topic areas, duration of the mentoring process etc.

4. Provide resources which people can opt to use if interested. These might include:

- Mentoring Logs to capture conversations, learning and next steps.

- Worksheets mentors and mentees might want to include in their work

- Goal Trackers for mentees/proteges to keep track of their learning

5. Create opportunities to connect throughout the year to bring pairings together. This might include special speakers on industry or topics related to the mentoring or, group calls focusing on best practices etc.

Plus a sixth I needed to mention:

Make sure that you have someone to coordinate all the players. Successful mentoring programs involve a wide range of players including internal committee responsible for making decisions, external partners who might be supporting you with the program training and support. A corporate sponsor also helps to ensure that mentoring conversations are prioritized even when things get busy!

If you have developed a mentoring program before, what are your recommendations?

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized: Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching(Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC and the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team

#Teams365 #383: Sunday Audio: Mentoring an important Part of Your Leadership DevelopmEnt

1/18/2015

In this Sunday's audio post, I cover several reasons why mentoring is an important development strategy. It is said that Mentor was asked by Odeseyus in Ancient Greece to pass on all that he knew to his son Talemachus.

In this week's 9 minute audio I also include several considerations for organizations who might be considering setting up their own mentoring program.

Enjoy this weeks audio which will be followed by several more tips around mentoring early this week:

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized: Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching(Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC and the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team

#TEams365 #382: Essential Leadership Read: Power Mentoring

1/17/2015

Aligned with this week's theme of leadership is our book of the week - Power Mentoring by Ensher and Murphy. This book provides research around mentoring along with practical tips for making the most out of your mentoring. I recommend it regularly in the mentor and protege training I do for organizations.

As you consider what mentoring means for you, and what it looks like in your organization, what is important for you right now? What is your next step around this?

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized: Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC and the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team

#Teams365 #381: Check IT Off - Identify and Schedule A Mentoring Conversation

1/16/2015

This week we have been exploring mentoring relationships. Whether you have formal or informal mentoring relationships in place, this is something that is easy to have fall to the bottom of the "To Do List".

Mentors provide important insights, based on their own experience, of how to get things done, the political climate of an organization as well as road-tested tips on performance.

Take time today to reach out and schedule a call or conversation with a mentor.

Four questions you can lead any conversation with are:

Tell me about your greatest learning in your role?
What one piece of advice would you give to someone stepping, or moving into, the team leadership role?
What habits have you developed which have been supportive to your work and leadership over the year?
What's been your greatest leadership success?

Enjoy the conversation!

Jennifer
Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized: Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC and the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team

#Teams365 #380: Team Building Tip #18: Pulse Check On GOAls

1/15/2015

Our Thursday Team Building Tip this week takes us to a pulse check.

Consider your key goals right now and on a scale of 1-10, how are you meeting them.

Also, where you are most supporting corporate goals and initiatives?

How does your focus, goals and initiatives link into the bigger picture?

Does everyone on the team see the same connection?

Best
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized: Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC and the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team

#teams365 #379: What Makes Mentoring Work

1/14/2015

Mentoring is an often underutilized resource in organizations for talent development, leadership and succession planning. Whether mentoring is focused on supporting new employees coming into an organization, or developing the talent pool of leaders, there are several factors which research continues to show makes mentoring work:

1. The relationship in mentoring is critical - just as is being seen in a formal coaching relationships, the fit between mentors and men tees is also critical to success.

Questions to consider: As you go about your pairing, what is important from the proteges perspective - a certain career background? Technical expertise? Certain competencies which have been developed? Other?

2. Clear roles and responsibilities: On a practical level pairing is cticial as is ensuring everyone is on the same page around the roles and responsibilities of mentoring. It can be very useful to provide both mentors and mentees with a training session at the kick off of any mentoring process. Reviewing who is responsible for initiating the sessions, creating the focus and follow-though can go a long way in getting the relationship moving effectively.
Questions to consider: Who is responsible for what? How will you ensure you have created shared expectations? (Note: first conversations are critical for tis).

3. What research continues to point to is the importance of trust. In a mentoring relationship this is two way. First, the mentor will be sharing key elements and insights based on their own career. Dependent on the industry you work wtihin they may be sharing key elements. Creating confidentiality agreements at the start of mentoring is an important step.
Trust plays out in other ways such as follow-through around meetings and agreements made, preparation on the part of the mentee and mentor.
Question to consider: What is going to build trust in your mentoring relationship.

4. Listening is key - Mentoring should be a two way street and it is important that the mentor gets as much out of the experience as the mentee. In creating mentoring relationships that really work, listening is key on the part of both mentor and mentee. Mentors should be listening for what the mentee is really wanting and needing from the relationship. Is it the "war stories" of your past, encouragement, resources?
Likewise, it is important for mentees to make the most of the mentoring process as well, and listening to what the mentor has to offer. coming prepared and asking questions will also help to maximize the mentoring experience.

5. Shared expectations - Going hand in hand with the clear roles and responsibilities are creating shared expectations. Where challenges and pitfalls emerge around mentoring is often in this area. What is expected in terms of numbers of meetings? Frequency? Length? Where will you be meeting? When? Who will be footing the bill if you go out to eat. These are all areas I encourage mentors and proteges to cover in their first meeting.

What other components are going to make your mentoring experience the most positive and impactful it can be?

Looking for more resources to support your program? Contact me to discuss training and other support resources we offer to the mentoring process through Potentials Realized and the Mentor RoadMap(TM).

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized: Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC and the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team

#TEams365 #378: Mentoring - Five interesting Factoids

1/13/2015

Mentoring is a key component in team development as well as succession planning. As mentors we are helping to build capacity within our organization, usually with people who are not our direct reports.

for more than two decades I ahve been involved in mentoring, either aas a mentor, or in the last 10 years in helping organizations develop their own mentoring programs.

This week and next we are going to look at a number of posts around mentoring - best practices, core skills and things to be aware of.

Today's post covers five factoids which are interesting as we consider mentoring in 2015:

Retention rates were higher for both mentees/proteges (72%) and mentors (69%) than for employees who did not participate in a mentoring program (Gartner, 2006)
Managerial productivity increased by 88 per cent when mentoring was involved, versus only a 24% increase with training alone; (ASTD)
71% of Fortune 500 companies use mentoring to assure learning occurs in their organizations (ASTD)
96% of executives surveyed say mentoring is an important development tool (Source: Account Temps)
75% of executives point to mentoring as playing a key role in their careers ad 44 percent of CEOs list mentoring programs as one of the three most efficient strategies to enhance women’s advancement into senior management (Source: ASTD)

If you have a mentoring program, what do you see as benefits to your organization? What benefits has it provided to you as a professional?

As someone who has been involved with mentoring for more than two decades, as a mentor myself, and now as someone who helps organizations with their own mentoring programs, mentoring can be transformational to careers and organizations. It's also a great cost-effective talent and leadership development strategy.

I look forward to bringing you several posts in the next two weeks around mentoring best practices and what we know makes it work!

Best
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized: Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC and the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team

#Teams365 #377: Teamwork Enablers: Five Things that Make Teamwork, Work more effectively

1/12/2015

Great teamwork is supported by a couple of things that teams and team leaders can do on a regular basis. Today's blog post provides five things team leaders and their teams can be focusing on to really make team work, work.

1. Create a shared focus. I have written quite a bit in recent weeks of the importance of vision. Vision is important for us on an individual level as well as a team level. At one of your first team meetings this year, discuss your shared vision and focus for the year. What will success look like at the end of the year? What are key activities everyone is coming to be moving towards?

2. Dedicate time for the team - Great teams don't just happen naturally. They evolve with time dedicated to it. In recent posts I've encouraged teams to consider regular touch points that are dedicated to planning and team development. These should not be just check box activities but should each have a focus. At the same time it is important to also consider what's working and "break out of any molds" you might be creating with your molds.
Activity: Grab a calendar and think about what your regular team meetings will look like and 2-3 others thorughouth the year. What will be the focus of each? Who will lead them? What's going to amp them up in terms of impact?

3. Keep goals visible and alive - one of the major challenges with goals in business today is that they are focused on so much at one time of the year and then never looked at again. Goals should be living and breathing and visible. Keeping the goals visible and alive for the team is key.
Activity: Consider how goals will be visible for the team.

4. Make it fun - What fun means varies for each team. Make sure whatever you are doing is resonant for the team members themselves. Watch the ruts you are getting into.
Activity: Consider what fun means for the team.

5. Get everyone involved. Developing future team leaders is often a mandate for most of us as team leaders as our own tenure will come to a close at some time. Getting everyone involved in creating team activities can be empowering to team members.
Activity: Consider who on your team would benefit and excel in taking a more active role in hosting, coordinating or doing team meetings.

Have a great start to the week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Potentials Realized: Coaching | Teamwork | Leadership
Supporting Team Leaders to do their best work, one conversation at a time
Author of From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Authorized Partner of Everything DiSC and the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team